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Open Access Geoscience Data Journal Launched by Wiley

Hoboken, N.J.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., has partnered with the Royal Meteorological Society to launch the Geoscience Data Journal as part of the Wiley Open Access publishing program. The new online-only journal will publish short, earth science data papers cross-linked to datasets that have been deposited in approved data centres and awarded DOIs.

“It is becoming increasingly important that the data which underpins key findings should be made more available to allow for the further analysis and interpretation of those results,” said Mike Davis, Vice President and Managing Director, Life Sciences Wiley. “The ability of researchers to create and collect often huge new data sets has been growing rapidly in parallel with options for their storage and retrieval in a wide range of data repositories. We are launching the Geoscience Data Journal in response to these important developments.”

The editorial team, which includes representatives from the Natural Environment Research Council and the British Atmospheric Data Centre, is led by Dr Rob Allan from the UK Met Office, and will work alongside a global network of data centres. The journal will play a crucial role in the curation and archiving of digitally stored datasets, ensuring geosciences data is easily accessible, readable and understandable for years to come.

Geoscience Data Journal is online-only and will publish short data papers (articles describing a dataset, giving details including collection, processing, software and file formats) covering topics ranging from weather and climate, to oceanography, atmospheric chemistry and geology. All published data papers will be linked to datasets, which provide details of the collection, processing and file formatting of data.

“Issues around provenance, curation, recognition and discovery of data have always been important, but never as much as over recent years,” said Professor Paul Hardaker, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society. “Being able to publish data in a peer-reviewed journal not only helps to address many of these challenges, but for the first time will help to recognise the contribution that data and those scientists that work with data make to the wider community.”

“The establishment of journals which allow for the formal peer-review, publication and citation of data sets provides a real opportunity to promote open data, improve the openness and transparency of the research process and promote the re-use of data held by NERC and other research organisations,” said Mark Thorley, Head of Science Information at the Natural Environment Research Council. “NERC has been an active supporter of the data science activities that have led to the establishment of this journal, and we will be encouraging and supporting our research community to use it to publish data sets that they hold.”